..Specifically, the review focuses on four factors that have been shown to enhance the learning of motor skills: observational practice; the learner's focus of attention; feedback, and self-controlled practice...

Attention and motor performance: preferences for and advantages of an external focus

..The authors conclude that suprapostural task goals have a stronger influence on postural control than vice versa, reflecting the propensity of the motor system to optimize control processes on the basis of the desired movement effect...

..The results demonstrate the effectiveness of effect-related, as opposed to movement-related, feedback and also suggest that there is a need to revise current views regarding the role of feedback for motor learning...

..These results suggest that neuromuscular coordination is enhanced by an external focus of attention. The present findings add to the evidence that an external focus facilitates the production of effective and efficient movement patterns...

Increased movement accuracy and reduced EMG activity as the result of adopting an external focus of attention

..This suggests that an external focus of attention enhances movement economy, and presumably reduces "noise" in the motor system that hampers fine movement control and makes the outcome of the movement less reliable...

..Those findings are in line with the constrained action hypothesis (G. Wulf, N. McNevin, & C. H. Shea, 2001), according to which an external focus promotes the use of more automatic control processes...

..The findings are in line with a "constrained action" hypothesis that accounts for the relatively poorer learning associated with an attentional focus directed towards effects in close proximity to the body, or towards the body itself...

..These results demonstrated that learning is facilitated if feedback is provided after good rather than poor trials. The findings are interpreted as evidence for a motivational function of feedback...